Institutional Self Assessments As Change Agents: Georgia Tech's Two Year Experience

In January 1999, the results of two institutional self-assessments were reported at the Georgia Tech President’s Cabinet meeting. This marked the culmination of a five-year effort to evaluate the status of women at Georgia Tech and to help warm up a climate perceived to be inhospitable by many female students and faculty. These self-assessments, the InGEAR Report on the Status of Women at Georgia Tech, 1993-1998, and Enhancing the Environment for Success: Report from the Task Force for Opportunities for Women in Engineering, established baseline data that now allow us to evaluate changes that have occurred in the subsequent two years. They also helped to raise the awareness of gender issues on campus, and to establish an agenda for institutional change. In this paper we report the findings and recommendations of these two institutional self-studies, and review the progress Georgia Tech has made over the intervening two years.